by Robin McAtee, PhD, RN, FACHE, Director, Arkansas Geriatric Education Collaborative at UAMS
The AGEC received news earlier this year that we might receive a 4th year of funding from HRSA without rewriting for the grant! We are optimistic as a federal budget has been approved and the GWEPs are still included. We now patiently await news from HRSA!
While we wait on that, we are busy with programs all over the state! Our health professional programs are consistently reaching over 100 healthcare professionals for each program as we have expanded our coverage with live and webinar formats! This spring we are exploring the new Shingles vaccine as well as other vaccines for adults. Please join us on May 8th from 11-1 in the Rahn Auditorium for that event! We have also worked with our partner in educating direct care workers on reformatting the certified nurse assistant curriculum from 116 hours to 91 hours, thus increasing our capacity and making the program more competitive within many of our diverse communities. We are also reaching out into the communities in an effort to touch more family caregivers with education; especially surrounding dementia care. We have had several dementia family care giver workshops this past fall and winter and have many more scheduled this spring! Other popular programs include activity and fall prevention related programs such as A Matter of Balance, Tai Chi, and Ageless Grace.
For information on any of our programs and our partnered programs, please explore our website!